# Sniping vs proxy bidding - what's the advantage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 29, 2005, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sniping-vs-proxy-bidding-whats-the-advantage/324018 "2005-09-29T14:25:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sniping-vs-proxy-bidding-whats-the-advantage/324018/21 "2005-09-30T02:16:02Z")
> [@CynicalGabe](#): > > You bid $9. I come in at the last second and bid $10. Before you can up the bid to beat it, the auction is over. > > Lets be honest, few people bid by putting in 1 bid that is the most they are willing to pay. You and **SlyFrog** both missed the point. I do, indeed, bid exactly the maximum amount that I’m willing to pay, and I let the proxy software take it from there. If I think it’s worth $10, I’ll bid $10. Most of the snipers I’ve talked to use the sniping software so that they don’t have to sit at their computers waiting for the last moment before auction close. They can have a life. An auction ends at 2:00 on Saturday and you’re planning on fishing all day? No problem. Set a snipe amount on Friday and don’t worry about it. You set your snipe for $10 on Friday afternoon. I make an actual bid for $10 an hour later. If nobody goes higher than $10, I win. You lose. If it goes higher than $10, fine. Neither of us would have won it anyway. I’m not saying proxy bidding is better than sniping. I’m saying that this particular case is a definite disadvantage to sniping that nobody else had mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sniping-vs-proxy-bidding-whats-the-advantage/324018/22 "2005-09-30T04:05:42Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > … they could have an automatic extention. That is, if someone bids in the last few minutes of the auction, the auction is extended by a few minutes. This is, of course, how live auctions work - they stay open until there’s just one bidder left. Is there any reason why eBay doesn’t implement this? It seems as if it would work in their favor. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sniping-vs-proxy-bidding-whats-the-advantage/324018/23 "2005-09-30T05:25:15Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > You set your snipe for $10 on Friday afternoon. I make an actual bid for $10 an hour later. If nobody goes higher than $10, I win. You lose. If it goes higher than $10, fine. Neither of us would have won it anyway. The chance of two people bidding exactly the same amount is pretty small. And you can minimize the chance by not bidding nice round numbers. In your example, if I think an item is worth $10, I’d bid, say, $10.33. If you’d bid $10.00, I’d win. If you bid $10.52 you’d win fair and square. ---
**Author:** ![cstamets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@cstamets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cstamets)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sniping-vs-proxy-bidding-whats-the-advantage/324018/24 "2005-09-30T11:41:03Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > This is, of course, how live auctions work - they stay open until there’s just one bidder left. Is there any reason why eBay doesn’t implement this? It seems as if it would work in their favor. I read, I believe it was on eBay in a FAQ or one of their forums, that they’re afraid doing that would cause them to be considered a true auctioneer and, as such, subject to the same regulation that auctioneers are subject to, such as licensing. That hasn’t stopped Yahoo from doing it on their auction site. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sniping-vs-proxy-bidding-whats-the-advantage/324018/25 "2005-09-30T12:04:21Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > What happens if more than one bidder is using the same sniping software on the same item? In the case where everyone is sniping “perfectly”, i.e. placing their bids at the last possible moment, the eBay system effectively becomes a [Vickrey auction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickrey_auction), in which everyone submits secret bids before a deadline, the winner is the highest bidder, but the price paid is the value of the second-highest bid. (Actually, in eBay’s case it would be the value of the second-highest bid plus the minimum bid increment, but this is a minor point.) ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sniping-vs-proxy-bidding-whats-the-advantage/324018/26 "2005-09-30T12:07:06Z")
> [@mks57](#): > > It’s human psychology that makes it work. Bidding activity tends to attract more bidding activity, as does a higher “current bid”. In some eBay auctions, you will see someone bid $20, $25, $30, etc. until they get high bid or the price gets too high. If outbid, many people will raise their bid to recapture high bidder status. Sniping avoids some of these problems. I have found myself doing this: For example, I bid on a box of Marathon bars on ebay, for 10 dollars. Guy comes in and bids 15. Instead of letting him have it, as there were three other auctions at 10 dollars and no bidders, we both end up having a bidding war that takes the price up to 27 dollars. I felt pretty stupid, but at the time it was “beat the guy” attitude rather than any logic. I use this tactic when I am selling stuff. I rarely ever start a bid at a high value. If you start it at 1 cent, the people that bid on it tend to fight for it, causing the price to go up to 20 dollars, when I wouldn’t ever get a single bid if I started it at 10. I’ts an emotional investment, bidding. People like to protect their emotional investments even at the cost of a great value. I know there are obviously exceptions, but it works well enough that I can confidently say it is common. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2005, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sniping-vs-proxy-bidding-whats-the-advantage/324018/27 "2005-10-01T19:50:31Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > If they really wanted to discourage sniping, they could have an automatic extention. That is, if someone bids in the last few minutes of the auction, the auction is extended by a few minutes. Yahoo! Japan’s auction has this option (the seller decides whether to enable this feature). That’s such a great idea I’m surprised they haven’t done it. A real-world auction doesn’t have a time limit. It ends after there are no more bids after a short elapsed time. “Going, going, gone!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sniping-vs-proxy-bidding-whats-the-advantage/324018.md?page=1)